Keepsake (39 page)

Judy Damian was all aflutter.

"You were right, Mrs. Dewsbury! It
had
to have been Quinn and his father. The timing was right, the place was right—and you have the postcard to corroborate it all!" The librarian collapsed her umbrella and untied her rain bonnet, then unbuckled her trench coat as Mrs. Dewsbury tried to rush her along.

"What a wonderful memory you have! How many people can recall news from seventeen years ago? Certainly not me. Oh, this is
so
exciting! I'm so happy for Quinn, really I am! I always knew he was special. And now look—I was right!" she said, pulling a couple of Xeroxed sheets out of her carrier and waving them in front of the widow's failing eyes.

"Judy, please calm down; you're going to have a heart attack," said Mrs. Dewsbury. She herself was far more tense than giddy. "Give it to me, would you? I'd like to read it for myself."

She laid the first sheet of the seventeen-year-old newspaper article on the moveable platform under the camera of her CCTV and adjusted the focu
s, then selected the white-
on-black exposure to make the print jump-out clear for herself.

She caught her breath at the date, magnified twenty-five times so that she wouldn't mistake it. "I knew it! October twenty-third—less than two days after they took off from
Keepsake. That's about how long it would take to travel on a bus as far as
Harrisburg
, don't you think?"

"Absolutely," said Miss Damian. Biting her lip and shaking her head with emotion, she added, "Why didn't Quinn
say
something after he came back?''

"Quinn? He would never bring up something like this, not until later, after he'd proved his father's innocence."

"And now he's gone again!"

"Shh! I'm trying to concentrate." Mrs. Dewsbury kept her focus locked on the monitor as she moved the platform where the news piece from the
Pittsburgh Courier
lay. Slowly and methodically, she read the information being flashed so large on the television screen before her.

****

HARRISBURG, OCT. 23—A bus traveling west on Interstate 76
from
New York and carrying thirty-six passengers overturned and caught fire on an exit ramp
just east of
H
arrisburg early this morning. T
wo
unidentified men aboard the bus are credited with saving the lives of at least a dozen passengers who were overcome by smoke. T
wo
other passengers died in the impact.

Witnesses say that the younger man, strongly
built and in his early twenties, pulled the dazed and sometimes unconscious passengers, most of them elderly or women with children, from the confines of the smoke-filled bus.
T
he older of the rescuers, a middle-aged man, was seen to carry two children from the bus and administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation to one of them until the first of a dozen emergency vehicles arrived on the scene.

Firefighters quickly put out the blaze, but the
exit ramp remains closed until an investigation can be completed.
T
he driver has not been charged.

T
he identities of the rescuers are not known at this time.
R
hyanna
W
hite, a passenger aboard the bus, stated to police that after the arrival of the paramedics, the two rescuers, who are believed to be a father and his son, flagged down a passing vehicle and left in it.
The car was a two or three-
year-old gold coupe, possibly a
C
hevrolet
C
amaro, with one occupant.
A
nyone with information is asked to contact either state or local police.

****

"Oh, Quinn," murmured Mrs. Dewsbury after she finished. "Oh, Quinn."

"Quinn was seventeen at the time, but you know how mature he looked. And he was a big guy, even then. He could easily have passed for someone in his twenties."

"This is awful, this is tragic. This is so unfair."

"I thought you'd be happy!
" the librarian said.

"So did I."

After a moment the younger woman said hesitantly, "What do we do now?"

"I wish I knew," said Mrs. Dewsbury, slumping in front of her CCTV. "I wish I knew."

****

Quinn parked his truck in the cemetery lot and made his way on foot to his father's grave, dreading the moment as much as if his father were alive and anxiously awaiting news of Quinn's adventure out east.

But he wasn't. Francis Leary was dead and buried, and the grass growing over his grave was well established. A patch of clover had sprouted near the middle of the mound. It drew a mournful smile from Quinn. His dad loved to see clover growing in grass he maintained; it was proof that the soil was herbicide-free.

Quinn dropped down into a catcher's crouch, with his hands dangling loose between his thighs. In his state of despair, it was the nearest position to prayer that he could
manage
.

"I blew it, Dad," he murmured, "I blew it big time. I went charging off to
Connecticut
like a stoned Crusader, convinced that I could unmask the villain in the piece and set your reputation right once and for all.

"Well, guess what? The villain in the piece turned out to be me. You got it—your number-one, overachieving, underwhelming, self-destructive, star-crossed son.

"I did manage to win one tiny little skirmish: at least three people are now convinced that you're innocent. The rest of the time I spent sacking and plundering an innocent woman's relationships with everyone she's ever loved. I was
real
thorough, Dad, even for me. By the time I left, there was nothing left standing, emotionally speaking, except her white-hot hatred for yours truly."

He plucked some of the strands of grass that had escaped the caretaker's weed whacker and were growing tall beside the new headstone. "So here's where we stand," he continued, convinced he had to say it aloud. "Olivia's brother—or even worse, her father—killed Alison to keep her quiet. You remember her brother Rand: nice guy, bit of a charmer, family man now, active volunteer in town events. And Owen Bennett—still a ballbuster, to be sure, but holding Keepsake together single-handedly by keeping the mill in operation there. As I say, I make a hell of a better villain than either of 'em.

"Did I mention that
Rand
has two great kids and a dynamite wife? She's Olivia's best friend. And Livvy adores the kids. Well, she used to be able to, anyway."

Quinn ran his hand tenderly over the patch of soft clover. "Think there's a four-leaf version in there for me?" he whispered. "I could use a little of that vaunted luck o' the Irish."

A puffy cloud scudded between the sun and the grave, subduing hope. The silence was overwhelming.

Quinn sighed and said, "So! Heard any good undertaker jokes lately?" He laughed softly at his own lame idiocy, then stood up.

"I'm sorry, Dad," he said, looking down at the grassy mound at his feet. "I'm sorry. I wanted to get this one thing—this one fucking thing—right. And I blew it. Oh, God, how I blew it."

He felt a hard lump in his throat, and then tears. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the crushingly bleak life that lay ahead of him, and then suddenly he dropped to his knees and bent prostrate over the grave. His forearms prickled from the newly cut grass; he grabbed clumps of it in his fists and pulled, trying to open the door to eternity.

He wanted advice; he wanted love; he wanted, in this most despairing moment of his life, to connect again with humanity.

"Oh, Christ, Dad, I blew it," he said, his body riven with sobs. "I blew it
... I blew it
... I blew it
.
..."

****

Olivia was sitting in front of her computer in the loft of Miracourt and grinding out numbers for her accountant when she heard sharp tapping on the storefront window below her. Determined not to lose her train of thought, she kept plugging away at her column of numbers. The shop was closed and tax day was looming. A sale wasn't worth it.

The rapping continued, more urgent than before. Olivia stood up and peeked out the Palladian window. No UPS truck was parked below, but it was pouring out, which she hadn't realized, so she went downstairs to answer the summons. Whoever was there must be desperate.

She was amazed to see
Mrs. Dewsbury under the shop awning, peering through the door as she rapped on the window with the handle of her black umbrella.

Olivia rushed to unlock the shop and let the old woman in, chiding her for being out in such awful weather.

"I take my rides when I can get them," Mrs. Dewsbury said, using the umbrella as she would a cane. "Father Tom stopped by for tea, and he offered to give me a lift downtown. He's waiting in his car now, so I have to be brief." She glanced around her and said, "Where can I sit down?"

Olivia ran for an old armchair that she liked to update every once in a while in a new fabric and keep handy for the weary, and she settled her old teacher in it. True to her word, Mrs. Dewsbury got right to the point.

"I've agonized over this long enough. I know very well that Quinn wouldn't want me meddling between you two—don't look at me that way, my dear; I'm older and wiser than both of you put together—and up until now I've respected what I know would be his wishes. How
ever."

She unzipped her black purse and took out two sheets of paper that were folded in half and handed them to Olivia. "This is the man you're throwing away. If you read the article and can still do that, you're a lot less smart than I've always assumed. All right. I've spoken my piece," she said, using the armrests to push herself up with an effort from the chair. "Do you remember what I told you on the day before you took your SATs?"

In a daze, Olivia stared at the silver-haired teacher in the porkpie rainhat. She shook her head.

"I said, 'Don't disappoint us.' I'm repeating it now, Olivia. This is the most important decision you'll ever make! All
this,"
she added, waving a hand at the shop, "is nothing. Not by comparison. Good night."

She turned and began limping toward the door. Olivia rushed to hold it open.

"I don't know—thank you," she mumbled in confusion. She had no idea what she w
as supposed to be grateful for.
She waved at Father Tom as he emerged from his black sedan under another umbrella to get the door for Mrs. Dewsbury. The car drove off, puffing steamy exhaust into the wet, cold night, and Olivia locked up shop again. She sat in the tapestry-covered armchair and, with more dread than curiosity, she unfolded the pages.

Harrisburg
, Oct. 23—A bus traveling west
.
...

Olivia read the article through, and then she went right back to the dateline and read it through again. She remembered Quinn's words when he was reading her the riot act back on pie day:
a situat
ion where my father could have
—should have—been honored as a hero.

This was that situation, without a doubt.

With a deep sigh, made even more profound by the hormonal swings she was daily enduring, Olivia folded the pages and laid them on her lap. It didn't seem possible that one man could be so good, so brave, and so wronged all in one lifetime. And to have lived his life in hiding
,
and then to die without having been vindicated—it was almost unbearably sad. No wonder Quinn had been so determined to clear his father's name.

No wonder.

After a long and mournful moment, Olivia stood up and drifted over to the storefront window. She had replaced the spools of ribbon—finally—with bolts of frothy spring fabrics:
pink organdy, pale lime chiffon
and white netting bunched in makeshift tutus for all those sewing mothers whose little girls had dance recitals coming up.

It hit her: Francis Leary had never lived to see a granddaughter in a tutu.

She fingered an edge from the bolt of chiffon. It was such a delicate fabric. It would take a number-nine needle; anything bigger would leave holes. Her mother had sewn her a tutu once. Pink, of course; there was no other color for a six-year-old ballerina with dark curls, an attitude, and legs just a little too short ever to be called lithe.

Mom, that was a reall
y nice thing you did. You weren
't very good with a Singer. Even I remember the seams you had to tear apart and resew. It was a labor of love, I know that now. Thank you.

She sighed. Everyone around her seemed to labor from love. Even her father
... why else did he drive himself so hard, if not for the mill workers? He would never admit it, of course, but he felt a tremendous responsibility to every one of them. He wasn't fighting for that tax break to enhance his own wealth; he could easily move the mill to
Mexico
and make a lot more money.
Keep it in Keepsake
: i
t was the creed he lived by.